Suggestions for building RetroArch mini PC

RetroArch General
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#1

Hello,

I wanted to build a mini PC for playing RetroArch on it. I already tried RetroArch on my PC and it’s great, but I wanted a solution for hooking up to my 4K TV. So I thought of buildiung a mini PC. But I don’t know what hardware would be best for my requirements, which are:

  • Systems: PS2, N64 and lower
  • For N64 I would like to be able to use ParaLLEl RDP/RSP on 1x resolution
  • Upscaling other systems at max. 2x
  • Using the CRT Royale shader on all systems

PC Builds tried:

  1. Desktop
    • Ryzen 7 3700x
    • GTX 1660 Ti
    • 32GB RAM
    • No trouble at all
  2. Old Intel NUC
    • Intel Celeron J3455
    • Intel HD 500
    • 2GB RAM
    • N64 and PS2 had troubles w/o shader, and CRT Royale shader didn’t run smoothly at all

Now I’m looking for something inbetween those to builds that matches my requirements. I had something like this in mind, since it can run Dolphin in native resolution smoothly and it has a reasonable price: https://www.intel.de/content/www/de/de/products/boards-kits/nuc/kits/nuc8i3beh.html

Can you recommend such hardware for my requirements? If not, what is the least powerful hardware I should get?

1 Like
#2

Hi, take look on this video from etaprime. i think it could fit your needs:

Components used:

  • HP EliteDesk 800 G2 SSF i5 6500
  • LP GTX 1650
  • 8GB DDR4
  • PNY CS900 240GB SSD

The most important part in your pc should be cpu, especially the single thread performance is crucial for emulation

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#3

Yes that would be a potent build for my needs. But it would be again a “pretty big” desktop build. I was looking for a small formfactor pc like the Intel NUC or Minisforum Series.

I found a review for a fairly new mini pc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLATODi7KlU It even runs Cemu, not at full 30FPS though at a decent FPS for this formfactor.

#4

Let me give it to you delicately…

PS2 Emulation is a disaster. Not only is there just one functional emulator, but the developers don’t put any effort into optimising it for lower-tier systems (not even after waiting 4 years for a new version).

If you’re going to dedicate your PC to PS2 Emulation, you might as well aim for one that can already do PS3 Emulation.

Back to the topic. I would recommend you the new Atari VCS Console if you want a fairly powerful PC dedicated for emulation:

#5

You will need an absolute beast of a cpu if you want to emulate PS2 correctly. The current best are Intel 11700k and AMD Ryzen 7 5800x.

#6

But isn’t this only true for a few games like God of War and Shadow of the Colossus? Cause I saw some videos where they emulate PS2 with Ryzen 4500U at 60FPS (probably without upscaling). Or is there an “accurate” setting for PS2 Emulators like the new ParaLLEl N64?

#7

Ok, so I’ve researched now for quite a bit and came to my final build that will (hopefully) handle all my requirements:

  • Asrock Deskmini X300
  • Ryzen 5 4650G
  • 8GB RAM

From Videos I saw, the CPU can handle almost any emulation at a reasonable FPS (even PS2). But what I saw was, that the Vulkan backend in many emulators really made the difference (in comparison to OpenGL).

1 Like
#8

A short update:

So I built a mini PC like described above with these components and it works like a charm with anything I throw at it. It even runs PS2 emulation pretty fine.

I can really recommend this setup. It cost me about 400$ which is an ok price for the hardware, though it might be too high of a price for some.

#9

I picked up a cheap HP Elitedesk 800 G2 mini w/i5-6500 recently and it works great with Lakka 3.6 and all cores (including PCSX2 Alpha), I even played through BG - Dark Alliance 2 at 2x native resolution fine. :slight_smile: